Dear Colleagues, With very mixed emotions, I am writing to inform that Cristina Farmus has accepted a position as Senior Policy Associate with the Office of Global Affairs. Her start date is November 14 - she'll be there most of November 14 and 15, but work half-time in ChE and OGA for the following two weeks, until November 27. Cristina joined our School in July 2004 as the Business Manager and served admirably in this role for four years. Since September 2008, she has served as the first Administrative Director for our School. This was a new position created to address a wide range of administrative needs in ChE. In this capacity, she has overseen essentially all non-academic aspects related to operating our School: finances, facilities, staff, computer network, corporate relations, marketing, and strategic plan implementation. She has defined the Administrative Director position and has performed in an exemplary manner in all her activities. In addition to her regular duties, Cristina undertook many other tasks. She was a member of the Centennial Planning Committee and helped to organize all the School Centennial activities in 2011. Among many tasks, she worked with co-authors Phil Wankat and Nicholas Peppas to issue a new edition of our School's history book, titled "100 Years of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University, 1911-2011." During this process, a new book project emerged, and thus a coffee table style book was published "A Pictorial History of the School of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University, 1911-2011" for which Cristina is a co-author along with Phil Wankat. Cristina was a member of ChE Strategic Planning Committee in 2009, whose charge was to define the 2010-2014 ChE Strategic Plan and assess its progress - she has led the latter process since its inception. She is also a member of the ChE Industrial Advisory Council (IAC), handles all communications related to the IAC and coordinates all the School's corporate relations. For her extraordinary work, she received the CoE New Employee Excellence Award in 2005. In addition, she received the 2012 CoE Leadership Award for staff members. Cristina has performed at a superb level in all her activities. She has been absolutely central for our School's operation for many years but is now interested in broadening her background, which is understandable. She has worked closely with me and helped me tremendously to do my own job. I know that I speak for all of us that her professionalism and positive attitude in all her activities will be sorely missed by all. Pl join me in wishing Cristina the very best for the future. Arvind Arvind Varma R. Games Slayter Distinguished Professor Jay and Cynthia Ihlenfeld Head of Chemical Engineering Purdue University